Sunday 9th December
After breakfast two taxis picked us up and brought us to our dogsledges outside of Kiruna. On our way we saw two mooses. One male with big impressive horns. He will certainly not die a natural death. Arrived at our starting point we had to wait for our guide. It was already cold. Together with us were also Erasmus students from Luleå and Västerå. All together we ere 25 people seperated on three dogsledges and two snow mobiles each with a big sledge behind. First we had to line the dogs in bushes were they immidiately start to shit and pi. You can't imagine what a smell 15 dogs can produce. Looking at the faces of the others was really funny, but I avoided to laugh with opened mouth, because the air felt so heavy.
Finally we started with our tour. Dogsledges are a crasy thing. The dogs just run. The only thing you can do is breaking. They run always following the track not careing for the sledge behind them. If they want to take a curve sharply then you slide for a few second just on one ski. After a while we reached a river. It sides were frozen. We were told that we were driving on a lake all the time. We lined to dogs and went to a boat that did not look very good. It had not much air and was covered with snow. Our guide brought us to the other side of the river in two shifts. I do not know how deep the river was. Maybe not that deep. But if it was deeper than a man can stand it was really dangerous. Somebody who would fall into the water would freeze for sure.
I had the feeling to freeze already in air. The weatherforecast proclaimed -1 degrees for the weekend. But as usual it came different: -10 in Kiruna. And what we did not know: Kiruna lies geographical special, so it is usuallz 10 degrees warmer than the surroundings. So we faced constantly -21 degrees while I was prepared for -1. From time to time fingers and toes hurt a lot.
Before complete darkness we finally arrived in the camp. It consists of small cottages. All heating with wood and gas expect a lappish cottage which only had a stove for heating. That lappish cottage was ours. The first task was to cut enough wood for all cottages, the kitchen cottage and the sauna. That took a while and brought fingers and toes back to life. Afterwards we had barbeque as lunch in a small cottage. It was really hard. We were all sitting next to the fire. The faces were hot, but the backs shaked since we sat next to the wall to the outside where it were -20 degrees. We had to grill chicken and the food was tasty. Afterwards we sat in the cottage and played cards and took naps.
In the early evening Ward and I were sent with a sledge down to the river for filling canisters with water for our cottage and the kitchen. At the northern horizon we could see bright clouds but we could not tell if it were clouds or northern lights. Half an hour later Jens and I went to the river again, because the view was better there than in the camp in the wood. And definitely: northern lights spread over the complete northern sky. It did not really reach us and was not as quick and intensive like in Sundsvall last December. But they were impressive northern lights. We all stand for a long time at the river and watched the sky.
At night we heated the sauna. And we did what is so famous for northern saunas: we ran out rolling in the snow and walked back into the sauna again. I can advise it to everybody. It is amazing. You do not really feel the cold. Only the feet begin to hurt after a two minutes. But knowing there is a hot sauna you can return to soon makes it easy to stand. Because a shower is missing there we had to shower with selfboiled water out of a water can.
Our accomodation reminded more of a cave than of a cottage. We had three rooms. One living room with the stove and two sleeping rooms. One bed was at a height of at least 2,20 meters, with space lower than half a meter to enter. That was my place. And it was so hot. I slept only in shorts without sleeping bag and I sweat the whole night. The people in the middle floor slept comfortable while people at the lowest beds had to close their sleeping bags to keep themselves warm. Maritha and Ralf were freezing the night in the living room. They even had to wake up every 90 minutes to put new wood on the fire.
After breakfast two taxis picked us up and brought us to our dogsledges outside of Kiruna. On our way we saw two mooses. One male with big impressive horns. He will certainly not die a natural death. Arrived at our starting point we had to wait for our guide. It was already cold. Together with us were also Erasmus students from Luleå and Västerå. All together we ere 25 people seperated on three dogsledges and two snow mobiles each with a big sledge behind. First we had to line the dogs in bushes were they immidiately start to shit and pi. You can't imagine what a smell 15 dogs can produce. Looking at the faces of the others was really funny, but I avoided to laugh with opened mouth, because the air felt so heavy.
Finally we started with our tour. Dogsledges are a crasy thing. The dogs just run. The only thing you can do is breaking. They run always following the track not careing for the sledge behind them. If they want to take a curve sharply then you slide for a few second just on one ski. After a while we reached a river. It sides were frozen. We were told that we were driving on a lake all the time. We lined to dogs and went to a boat that did not look very good. It had not much air and was covered with snow. Our guide brought us to the other side of the river in two shifts. I do not know how deep the river was. Maybe not that deep. But if it was deeper than a man can stand it was really dangerous. Somebody who would fall into the water would freeze for sure.
I had the feeling to freeze already in air. The weatherforecast proclaimed -1 degrees for the weekend. But as usual it came different: -10 in Kiruna. And what we did not know: Kiruna lies geographical special, so it is usuallz 10 degrees warmer than the surroundings. So we faced constantly -21 degrees while I was prepared for -1. From time to time fingers and toes hurt a lot.
Before complete darkness we finally arrived in the camp. It consists of small cottages. All heating with wood and gas expect a lappish cottage which only had a stove for heating. That lappish cottage was ours. The first task was to cut enough wood for all cottages, the kitchen cottage and the sauna. That took a while and brought fingers and toes back to life. Afterwards we had barbeque as lunch in a small cottage. It was really hard. We were all sitting next to the fire. The faces were hot, but the backs shaked since we sat next to the wall to the outside where it were -20 degrees. We had to grill chicken and the food was tasty. Afterwards we sat in the cottage and played cards and took naps.
In the early evening Ward and I were sent with a sledge down to the river for filling canisters with water for our cottage and the kitchen. At the northern horizon we could see bright clouds but we could not tell if it were clouds or northern lights. Half an hour later Jens and I went to the river again, because the view was better there than in the camp in the wood. And definitely: northern lights spread over the complete northern sky. It did not really reach us and was not as quick and intensive like in Sundsvall last December. But they were impressive northern lights. We all stand for a long time at the river and watched the sky.
At night we heated the sauna. And we did what is so famous for northern saunas: we ran out rolling in the snow and walked back into the sauna again. I can advise it to everybody. It is amazing. You do not really feel the cold. Only the feet begin to hurt after a two minutes. But knowing there is a hot sauna you can return to soon makes it easy to stand. Because a shower is missing there we had to shower with selfboiled water out of a water can.
Our accomodation reminded more of a cave than of a cottage. We had three rooms. One living room with the stove and two sleeping rooms. One bed was at a height of at least 2,20 meters, with space lower than half a meter to enter. That was my place. And it was so hot. I slept only in shorts without sleeping bag and I sweat the whole night. The people in the middle floor slept comfortable while people at the lowest beds had to close their sleeping bags to keep themselves warm. Maritha and Ralf were freezing the night in the living room. They even had to wake up every 90 minutes to put new wood on the fire.
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